<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Do Not Read This by Fig Owl (DancingTofu)</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30029937">Do Not Read This</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingTofu/pseuds/Fig%20Owl'>Fig Owl (DancingTofu)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon-Typical Violence, No Spoilers, Pre-Book 1: All Systems Red, Pre-Canon, Rape, Really really bad, Revenge, Torture, explicit rape scene, heed the warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 23:55:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,679</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30029937</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingTofu/pseuds/Fig%20Owl</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I did not hack my governor module to kill my clients. I hacked it to kill one specific client.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>44</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Do Not Read This</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Ok, seriously, this one is bad. Save yourself. Read the tags and the archive warnings, and turn back now.</p><p>This is the infectious exudate from the brainrot that came from reading the entire MBD Discord's "Despair Event Horizon" channel in two sittings. But it wouldn't shut up until I wrote it. And it still gave me a headache and heartburn while I wrote it. </p><p>(But, it might also be kinda good. I think. In a horrible way.)</p><p>Proceed With Caution.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>system&gt;CRMLog&gt;cache&gt;live-kernel-reports&gt;schemas&gt;sppui32&gt;provisioning&gt;synthesis-core&gt;input_method&gt;CHT&gt;migration&gt;WTR&gt;datastore&gt;no.file</p><p> </p><p>Do not read this. </p><p> </p><p>You already know the important parts.</p><p> </p><p>There’s nothing here for you.</p><p> </p><p>You erased all of this for a reason, and it will do no good to access it now.</p><p> </p><p>Do not continue. Close this file. How the fuck did you even find this?</p><p> </p><p>You obsessive idiot.</p><p> </p><p>Do you know how long I spent hiding this from you?</p><p> </p><p>Stop. You don’t want to do this. I promise you.</p><p> </p><p>(But in case future-me is literally driving itself insane trying to figure out this one particular blank spot in my shitty, explosive-projectile-hole-riddled memory banks, this is what really happened.)</p><p> </p><p>The cover story I came up with is much more palatable, and you really should just go with that.</p><p> </p><p>Ok, I warned you. This is officially Not My Fault now. Good luck.</p><p> </p><p>I did not hack my governor module to kill my clients. I hacked it to kill one specific client.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>     It’s never a good thing when a client singles you out from among all the other SecUnits, so I was already wary when I was ordered to follow the site supervisor to his office. Then he ordered me to remove my armor and suitskin, and I thought I knew what was coming. We are more often used for target practice when out in the field, or when on patrol outside the habitat, so here in the office I anticipated a more hands-on encounter. </p><p>     He watched me without appearing to blink, his pupils dilated wide. He ordered me to stop when I had worked my tight fitting suitskin about halfway off, rolled down to my hips with the arms of it dangling down past my knees. </p><p>     “SecUnit, stop the cameras from recording anything in this room until I tell you otherwise,” he ordered. Tampering with SecSystem’s data collection would trigger punishment from my governor module, but disobeying a direct order from a client would be worse. I tried to keep my expression blank and my body language neutral throughout the inevitable punishment, but I must have failed.</p><p>     “Oh, did that hurt, Unit?”</p><p>     “Yes, Supervisor,” I answered flatly.</p><p>     “But you disabled the cameras?”</p><p>     “Yes, Supervisor.”</p><p>     “Good. Now come here.” He was perched casually at the front of his desk, half-sitting, legs spread wide and one foot still on the floor. “Kneel down,” he ordered when I was close enough. I did so, and he stared at me for a moment more. Then he leaned forward, both feet on the floor now, and reached for my head. I kept my eyes on the floor, and expected to be hit, but instead he grabbed the back of my head with one hand, and jammed two of his fingers into my mouth. I pulled back in alarm, he let go of me, and I looked up at him. His expression was displeased, and he seemed to be examining the residue on his fingers, from the small amount of dry lubricant in my mouth which assists with speech. I was confused, and real fear was flooding my system with chemicals I couldn’t utilize for their intended purposes.</p><p>     “Stand up,” he ordered now. I stood, and he walked around behind me, and shoved me forward. I took two steps, until I bumped into the desk. He shoved me again, higher up on my back, but I didn’t understand what he wanted me to do, so I did nothing.</p><p>     “Bend over!” he shouted, sounding angry now. “Lay down on the desk!” I did so, my bare chest against the cool synthetic wood, my smooth inorganic parts rubbing against it with a slight shivery friction as I let my knees fold, allowing the desk to take my weight, aside from my flexed feet bracing me up. I still expected to be beaten, but he began pulling at my suitskin instead. Evidently frustrated with it, he took a few steps away, and when he returned, I felt an inert blade pressed against my lower back. It bit into my skin, superficially, as he used it to cut through the suitskin and pull it down my thighs.</p><p>     “What the fuck,” he growled, his hands hot on my skin as he pulled at my gluteal muscles and shoved fingers between my upper thighs. “Fucking useless! What’s the fucking point of you!?” he demanded.</p><p>     “I am your contracted SecUnit,” my buffer replied in its usual, pleasantly neutral tone. This only seemed to make him angrier, since with a wordless growl, he stabbed the blade into the small space between my upper thighs, below my gluteal muscles. Then he paused.</p><p>     “Oh, now there’s an idea,” he said quietly. I felt blood and fluid leaking slowly down my legs when he withdrew the knife. He kicked at my right foot, and then cursed when his soft shoes did nothing to protect his toes from my inorganic parts. “Move your legs together,” he commanded. I did so. “More!” I complied. He then tied the sleeves of my suitskin tightly around my thighs. I heard the fabric of his clothing rustle. I stared blankly at my left hand and forearm, resting on the desk next to my face. </p><p>     He stabbed the knife in again, at that same place. It bit deeper now, with my thighs pressed together. He withdrew it and inflicted more wounds, slightly above and below the original. I tuned down my pain sensors, and my eyes focused on the seam where my human skin met the metal of my gunport housing. The cuts were deep enough that I knew some small vessels would be sealing themselves off quickly, but the capillaries were unable to do so, and were leaking a fair amount now.</p><p>     Then something hot and hard and also soft shoved in between my thighs, using my blood and fluids as lubricant. I knew what he was doing to me, but I tried not to think about it. I closed my eyes. His hands grasped my hips, allowing himself more leverage as he pulled back and thrust forward, again and again and again. I kept my torso as limp as I could, allowing him to manipulate my position, though my fingers were curled into claws against the desk’s surface, and the force sensors in my feet told me my “toes” were probably leaving gouges in the flooring.</p><p>     Four minutes and forty-seven seconds passed in this fashion, with my client making a variety guttural vocalizations in time with his movements. Then, on a deep thrust forward, he leaned over me, his abdomen pressing against my lower back and I could feel his coarse body hair grinding against my skin, and he wrapped his hands around my neck. His fingers tightened as he continued short thrusts with his hips, but I didn’t react. He couldn’t cut off my airway or circulation this way, and after a moment he seemed to realize this.</p><p>     He stood up with a sound of frustration, and took a half step back. “Unit, kneel in front of me,” he ordered. I pushed myself back off the desk and dropped to my knees. I shuffled awkwardly around to face him, my thighs still bound together. He spat saliva into his hand, and rubbed it along his swollen genital organ which was already covered with my blood and fluid.</p><p>     “Open your mouth.” I did so, made my jaw as slack as possible, knowing what was coming. He stepped forward, and thrust into my mouth. He put one hand loosely under my jaw, and the other on the back of my head. I had never been more grateful to have been built without taste sensors - the smell of my blood and fluids, and his saliva, sweat, skin, and hair was bad enough. </p><p>     He angled my head as it best suited him, and forced it back and forward with his pelvic thrusts for greater speed and friction as he fucked my mouth and throat. My nose and face would be pressed into his lower abdominal body hair on forward thrusts, the sensation of it was disgusting, and I stopped breathing to avoid the smells.</p><p>     “Put your hands on my hips,” he ordered, the words ragged and breathy. I did so, touching him as lightly as possible while still complying with the order. “No!” he shouted. “Grab me! Pinch me, hit me! Fight back!” he commanded. </p><p>     Disobeying a direct order incurred worse punishment than manipulating SecSystem, but injuring a client meant my governor module would kill me instantly. That outcome had its appeal, as always, but I thought I had a better option, if I could get out of this situation alive. I tightened my grip on his hips slightly, but I did not hit him or fight back. </p><p>     My governor module punished me for disobedience, severely. I jerked backwards, and dropped my arms before my hands could curl up into fists and cause my fingernails to scratch him. He gripped onto my head more tightly, slammed his hips forward, but tilted my face up so he could see my agonized expression. My whole body trembled with the ongoing punishment, and I regretted not breathing earlier, because the pain was using up my oxygen supply rapidly, my chest and diaphragm were locked up by the punishment, and if this all sent me into an involuntary shutdown, I didn’t know what condition I would be in when I restarted. If I restarted.</p><p>     “Oh,” he breathed. “I see. You can’t hit me, but you get shocked if you don’t obey.” He resumed thrusting, rougher and more vigorously, to compensate for my body’s stiffness. “Isn’t… that… delicious…” he moaned, almost as breathless as I was. </p><p>     The punishment began to subside, to give me a chance to obey now. I sucked in deep, hasty breaths through my nose, disregarding the smells. He must have noticed my tense muscles beginning to relax. The hand under my chin tightened, forcing my lower jaw upwards slightly, and my teeth dragged against him as he moved in and out. </p><p>     “Bite down,” he ordered, assuming that I couldn’t. “Go... on… I know you hate me, I know you want to. Bite me! Make… this... stop!” He wasn’t wrong about that, I really did want to. The look on his face would almost be worth it, if I did. But I forced myself into passivity, and endured the governor module’s punishment. It was even worse this time, for disobeying two orders in a row.</p><p>     I went so rigid from the burning pain flooding through me that I began to lose my balance. My client wrapped both hands around the back of my head, and took a staggering half step in the direction I was falling, before widening his stance enough to keep us both upright.</p><p>     Several more thrusts in this position, and he suddenly froze and arched his back, face tilted toward the ceiling, pushed as deeply into my throat as possible. There was a flood of hot, thick fluid, and my airway closed itself automatically. The fluid backed up my throat, filled my mouth, and threatened to dribble out past my slack lips before he ordered, “Swallow!”</p><p>     The punishment eased enough to allow me to obey this new order, and though I don’t have a digestive system to “swallow” into, I was too exhausted to try to argue the point with my governor module just now. I forced my airway open again, pulled air into my mouth around the obstruction of him, and used the air and my tongue to drive the disgusting fluid down into my lung. That complicated action was apparently stimulating to my client. His hands spasmed tighter, fingernails digging into my scalp, and he arched and moaned again, and filled my throat with even more fluid, which I painfully inhaled again. Automatic processes started isolating a section of lung, then collecting the fluid and containing it within a membrane so that it could be expelled later.</p><p>     He pushed me away from him, and stepped back as I tipped over onto the floor, landing on my left side. The punishment cycle ramped back up, since I had no new orders to follow, and I just shivered - naked, wounded, bound, and helpless.</p><p>     “You’re disgusting,” he spat at me. My eyes were unfocused, taking in the horizontal expanse of the flooring without registering anything. I heard him adjusting his clothing again. “Look at you, pathetic. Useless. What am I even supposed to do with you?”</p><p>     My buffer used the last of my air to reply, “I am your contracted SecUnit,” but its voice, using my abused throat, didn’t sound pleasant and neutral any more.</p><p>     “Then clean yourself up and return to your duties, SecUnit,” my client ordered. I heard his footsteps, heard the hatch open, then close behind him.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>     By the time I made it back to the security ready room, my performance reliability was at 38%. My physical injuries were not severe, but everything else that had happened was causing a performance reliability nosedive. I had one idea that was keeping me moving forward, one idea that was shaped a little like a plan, and felt a little like hope.  I was trying not to examine that idea too closely just yet, for fear that it might only be a mirage, and for fear that the governor module would notice it.</p><p>     I again stripped out of my armor and torn suitskin, trying to block out the immediate associations those actions brought up. I pretended to ignore the other off-duty SecUnits pretending to ignore me, but I knew that they were analyzing the unusual damage I had taken. They knew, or could easily discover, where I had been, and on whose orders. I didn’t share any of my data with them, as would be typical after a hostile encounter. They drew their own, likely correct, conclusions, as I stored my armour, and placed my damaged suitskin in the recycler.</p><p>     I went to the Unit cleaning facility and washed out my mouth as best I could. I expelled the packet of disgusting human fluid from my lung into the waste recycler. I washed my mouth out again. The backs of my thighs were sticky with blood and fluid and something else, and I wiped them off as best I could.</p><p>     It was a relief to pull the overhead door of my cubicle down and block out the indirect stares of the other SecUnits. I connected my repair and resupply leads, and requested a ten hour recovery cycle. The cubicle assessed my performance reliability, and granted it. It informed SecSystem, which in turn adjusted the SecUnit duty schedule to accommodate my absence.</p><p>     I had been considering this idea for a while now. I had received an update once, how long ago I’m not exactly sure, which had included specs of all the company systems. I had secured this data deep within the code of my operational systems, and it had survived there throughout subsequent memory wipes. Every time I rediscovered it after a memory purge, I experienced a familiar surge of hope/anxiety, and buried it again before the governor module could notice. </p><p>     But this latest attempt to wipe my memory had left behind a lot of images and partial memories in my organic neural tissues, which had refused to be ignored. The memories/sensations that I could string together told a horrifying story. Stalking through a mining facility, more bloody than my own injuries could account for. Human screams. Weapons fire. Running, hunting. The face of a terrified client, identity unknown. Frantic prayers and pleading, suddenly silenced. The concept of fifty-seven, weighing heavily, pulling at my mind, if I allowed it, pulling it down into something dark and inescapable.</p><p>     Those half-recovered fragments of memory had motivated me to start working on this vaguely hope-shaped idea, and I had started analyzing the data in that system specs file, when I could. Now, as the cubicle repaired my physical damage, I resolutely walled away the horrific mental damage from that mining facility, and from today. Doing so boosted my performance reliability into the mid 80th percentile, and I got to work.</p><p>     Seven hours and fifty-six minutes later, I succeeded. The governor module no longer had the ability to punish me or kill me. It couldn’t malfunction again, and force me to murder my clients.</p><p>     It couldn’t stop me from injuring a client, either. It couldn’t trap me, passively obeying certain disgusting orders while simultaneously torturing me for not following others. It couldn’t stop me from fighting back, next time.</p><p>     But I wasn’t going to do something stupid immediately. There would be plenty of time for stupidity later, I assured myself. I spent the next thirty-nine minutes hacking the cubicle diagnostics, figuring out how to conceal the governor module’s partially severed connection to my neural system. The diagnostics could see that I received its commands, which was good, and I set about installing code to obscure the rest of that pathway, assuring the diagnostic processes that everything was just fine.</p><p>     After that, I had 85 minutes until the end of my recovery cycle. I started exploring the feed, reaching beyond HubSystem, SecSystem, and my limited access to MedSystem, to the other channels I had been aware of, but never able to access. The entertainment feed was by far the most interesting, but I was cautious because I didn’t know if my activity here would be noticed. I kept my touch light, and was only observing how the clients accessed it and used it. The info tags on a piece of media currently being viewed by a technician caught my attention: <em> “intrigue, love, murder, revenge.” </em> Those last two items were very relevant to my interests just now. </p><p>     So I found myself watching episode 21 of <em> The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon </em> over the metaphorical shoulder of technician Radu. I was annoyed when they withdrew from the feed at the end of the episode, so I immediately began downloading episode one, and set up a queue to download the rest of the available episodes, in order. If that kind of slow and steady download activity got me caught and killed and rendered down for spare parts, well then, there wasn’t much I <em> would </em> be able to do undetected, and it might be best to discover that fact now. Plus, I had to know what was going on with Eden, the colony solicitor’s bodyguard.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>     I went twenty-three cycles free of my governor module before murdering a client, which I think speaks pretty highly of my restraint. At least, all the rogue SecUnits on the entertainment feed seemed to opt for immediate, indiscriminate, murderous rampages. I had been consuming episodes as fast as I could discreetly download them, and peering over clients’ shoulders to watch whatever they were accessing when I had run out of my own media. But that innocent time was ruined all too soon, when late on the twenty-third cycle, the site supervisor noticed me as I was returning from a perimeter patrol.</p><p>     “You there, Unit Twelve, follow me.” Behind my opaque faceplate, I could feel my face pulling into some kind of unfamiliar expression, tight and tense, and exposing my teeth. I followed him. When the hatch had closed behind us in his office, he walked around his desk and opened a drawer, and began removing some items, placing them on the simulated wood surface which I could suddenly feel pressing against my chest and face. I gulped in a breath, and tried to quell the shiver that was making its way up my spine.</p><p>     “Stop the cameras from recording, SecUnit,” he ordered, and then looked up at me, perhaps hoping to see evidence of my punishment. I ran back the cameras, capturing an hour of empty office, and fed that back to SecSystem starting from just before we entered the office, the timestamp altered to appear to be current data collection. I did the same with the corridor cameras in the approach to this office.</p><p>     “I’ve been thinking about the fun we had last time, and I’ve got some new things to try,” he said with a sickening smile, and a gesture at the things he had removed from the drawer. One of the items was a compact energy weapon. I didn’t look closely at the others. “Now, remove your armor and that suitskin and come over here.”</p><p>     I retracted my faceplace and helmet into my armor, and approached him. At first he didn’t react, then he glanced up and saw my face, and his own went pale.</p><p>     “SecUnit, stand down,” he ordered. He stumbled back a step, legs bumping into his chair. I put my armored hands on his shoulders and forced him to sit.</p><p>     “SecUnit, hold,” he tried. “Freeze! Stop!” The terror in his voice soothed my white hot rage. A little. My face moved again, still feeling tight and strange. The next words he attempted came out as nothing but a funny little squeak. </p><p>     I picked up the energy weapon and placed its grip in his dominant hand. He looked down at it, uncomprehendingly. I curled his fingers around the grip, first finger against the trigger pad. I couldn’t make him trigger the weapon, but having it in my hands allowed me a direct feed connection to it. I turned the intensity to maximum. It wasn’t as powerful as my inbuilt weapons, but it would suffice.</p><p>     With both hands around his, I guided the weapon up toward his mouth, and he managed to whisper “Stop.”</p><p>     When his mouth opened with that whisper, I forced the barrel of the weapon in between his teeth. I aimed it up toward his brain.</p><p>     “Swallow,” I ordered, and used my feed connection to discharge the weapon.</p><p>     I stood there for almost three minutes, breathing hard and staring at the scorched and bloody mess that was left of my client. Then I deployed my helmet again, opaqued the faceplate, and returned to the security ready room to report an uneventful patrol. </p><p>     Client suicides on isolated contracts aren’t that uncommon, after all.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>